Submitted by “Comparing Samsung’s flagship products before and after release of the iPhone & iPad, and how Apple’s intellectual property infringement claims hold up.” A terrible visual guide that ignores not only Samsung’s own pre-iPhone designs, but also – and worse yet – the thirty-odd years of mobile computing that preceded the iPhone. Typical of today’s technology world: a complete and utter lack of historical sense. Worse yet are the claims about icons: only the phone icon is similar, but Apple did not invent the green phone icon. This is a remnant of virtually all earlier phones which use a green phone icon for initiate/answer call, and a red phone icon for terminate/reject call. Claiming this deserves IP protection is beyond ridiculous, and shows just how low Apple is willing to go.
For a moment I thought it was a timeline of all the iTunes icons.
In the same way a Thomson TV and Samsung TV can be somewhat similar.
Edited 2012-08-07 13:00 UTC
Ah, yeah, those designs that were thrown out of court. Riiight! The ones Samsung then got a tounge-lashing from the judge for when they leaked them to the press. The judge that Samsung apologists claim is biased, even though she refused both evidence and stupid claims from both sides. Yeah, keep on believing that old chestnut there Thom. Dry it out and build a few dikes.
“The judge blocked the details because she said the South Korean firm had tried to introduce them too late into the legal process.”
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19120664
Before going on a rant, it might have been an idea to check the facts.
Yes – she threw then out. It was widely publicised. She then also then tore a strip off of Samsung for making those details public to the press. These are both facts. Your point? If the evidence was so vital as they claim, why did they bring it up so late in the process? Desperation and playing dirty. Samsung are not the innocent party in this. Neither are.
My point is simply that your outburst focuses purely on the fact the evidence in question wasn’t allowed to be used in the case, or as you put it:
“Ah, yeah, those designs that were thrown out of court. Riiight! The ones Samsung then got a tounge-lashing from the judge for when they leaked them to the press. The judge that Samsung apologists claim is biased, even though she refused both evidence…”
Your argument suggests that the evidence is somehow false and/or malicious but it was simply submitted too late for it to be considered during the case. You appear to have deliberately left this crucial detail out to make a false point.
For those not in the legal profession, looking from the outside; that evidence is still very much relevant to getting an idea of how much Samsung based their handsets on the iPhone.
BTW, demanding balance while making disingenuous statements is often seen as hypercritical and undermines your claims.
Again – what is the edidence if not false/questionable if presented so far down the line. It was released to the public to sway opinion in their favour. They didn’t do it because they were trying to help people understand, they did I’d to play dirty. Just like Apple, who then tried to get te case closed in their favour because of the disclosure.
If I had evidence that you had several profiles, voting your own comments up seconds after you posted would it become invalid if I mention this just before comments close for this story?
But that would be pointless. You could only up vote a couple of times per comment. You’d need hundreds of accounts to make it work for more than a day.
Given the consistency of the immediate vote ups on your posts you clearly don’t consider it pointless. I call shinanigans!
All my posts start at 2. It happens when you hit a certain threshold here. It’s not shenanigans. it can happen to you too in time.
Edit: looking at your account, your status is “active”, mine is “trusted user”. When you hit “trusted user” yours’ll start at 2 too. I invite you to verify this by participating and getting up voted and up voting.
Edited 2012-08-11 08:26 UTC
It’s only a really “terrible” chart if you want to believe Samsung. If you don’t care (pretty much me) and believe people are being blinkered and reporting from an skewed angle on *both* sides, or if you believe Apple, well, it’s pretty damning.
Fact is Thom – there’s no objectivity or real reporting in your childish write up. You could have said “this is another point of view, take it for what it is – another view”, but instead it becomes a kindergarten level finger pointing and foot stomping dig at Apple. Very sad for OS News, sad indeed. The reason I submitted this article is that you’ve become extremely biased. Here was me hoping we could get back to reporting news rather than sitting on our back porches shooting at raccoons and muttering to ourselves about how evil the “man” is.
It’s only childish and subjective if you disagree with it. Had I written something that agreed with Apple, it would suddenly not be childish and subjective.
Look, we are all smart people here, and my opinion in no way impedes people’s ability to make up their own mind – as you just illustrated with your comments.
It was unnecessary. If you don’t agree with the content, fine, don’t publish it. From where I’m sitting, it just proves that you’re becoming fixated on proving one side is right and one side is wrong, when they’re both as bad as each other, both rip off anyone that they can and pretty much fight dirty.
Again – I’m not on either side. But either report fairly, employ a volunteer to report on the Apple side of things objectively or stop making any kind of comment on the stories, and let the reader make their own mind up. Because, as you say, we’re all *meant* to be adults here, right?
And by “objectively” you mean “in favour of Apple”, right?
More importantly – why should Apple get special treatment on OSAlert? If I rag on Google or Microsoft – not a peep from you. But for Apple, I should get someone else to do it?
You accuse me of being biased – which I am, I hate companies abusing software patents to stifle competition – while clearly being biased yourself. Kind of funny, in a way.
No, I mean don’t state your own opinion as being fact. Objectivity and a neutral stand point is the cornerstone of good journalism. You don’t have to like what you’re publishing, nor agree with it. Rather than trashing every Apple story and treating Samsung like they are the second coming of Jesus, why not say nothing and write an opinion piece once a week rounding up the evidence and as a conclusion, give your own opinion. That way the reporting is balanced.
Why should anyone get special treatment? Why should anyone be treated in any way but fairly? Why should anything be twisted in to a case against anyone else? These questions are what I ask myself when I read your extremist views. If you don’t allow racism or sexism here, why do you tolerate and encourage other forms of hate?
Untrue. Go back and look at any article that mentions Microsoft.Net, Silverlight or Mono. You’ll find me shouting about how great that tech is. I support what I like, but I don’t let that rule my life, nor do I go out of my way to be hateful to anyone, no matter what their story is. God, I even like you Thom, despite your foibles. Your problem is – I state anything positive in this thread about Apple I’m a fanboy. What am I supposed to do with that? Really?
How? To paraphrase myself, which part of “be fair to all parties, but seriously, I don’t care either way and think they both garbage” wasn’t clear? We’re not talking about Apple vs Samsung here any more. We’re talking about real journalism vs gutter press ambulance chasing. Yeah? Please take a break and write something less irrational. Honestly, as a journalist – when you’re good, you’re good. When it descends in to Thom vs the World ™ it’s pretty boring for the people on the fringes that just want to read something, anything, with an ounce of integrity.
Then quote each opinion of Thom and rebut it with facts.
_My_ opinion: You should not be able to use patents to protect yourself from competing products. I can not remember a time when Apple had to protect an invention they patented. Therefore I think all lawsuits Apple has started are anti competitive and just pure evil.
Because Apple is not a company but a church?
The sad thing I see is that people who seem to genuinely care about technology, about innovation and about ethics in business are seduced by a company as shitty as Samsung. It simply isn’t true that your enemy’s enemy is your friend.
Samsung has a history of copying other companies products.
http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-copies-2012-1?op=1
The hyper vocal critics of Apple deep inability to see what shifty and sleazy company they are keeping is connected to a deeper and more pernicious ideology which is the constant attempts to deny that Apple is innovative, and is in fact one of the most innovative tech companies around and as a result has a lot more IP which is relevant and cutting edge at stake than many other companies.
A good example of this is the utter refusal to accept the blindingly obvious which is that the iPhone was an inflection product that changed the smart phone industry and the market completely, and which all other smart makers struggled to deal with. Instead we get tedious and facile and seemingly endless dredging up of this photo, this product, this bit of history just prove that the iPhone was not an inflection point an game changer. Its intellectually vacuous.
Almost all existing handset makers have failed to respond to the iPhone successfully and have as a result suffered intense commercial maginilsation but Samsung, building on it’s ruthless commitment to copy successful products, did the only thing open to them: they copied Apple wholesale, the look, the design, the packaging.
Of course if one picks apart the minutiae of that copying it can be made to sound absurd, a shape here, a colour here, a look there. But that’s just the result of forensic pedantry. Just take one step back and it is utterly obvious, Samsung responded to the threat and the disruption of the iPhone (and subsequently the iPad) by copying it. It was a tactic they had used before but this time someone has stood up to them, And anybody concerned with technology, ethics and the future of innovation should Applaud Apple for doing that.
That sad thing you see is not entirely true, but of course not entirely untrue either. I’m fairly certain there are a lot of people – here and elsewhere – who are not Samsung fanboys, but in this case, would not take Apple’s side (I wouldn’t). I wouldn’t say they are seduced by Samsung, but they are not seduced by Apple either. I wouldn’t say Apple is totally wrong in the subjects of this trial, but I absolutely don’t like many aspects of what they are seemingly trying to do and where they’re headed with this. Samsung is also not one of my favourite companies (to be honest, I don’t really care for them, never did), and it certainly might turn out they “borrowed” design elements from iPhones, but that doesn’t give green light (oh, sorry, maybe “green light” is also an Apple patent) to go so over-the-board with their demands (regarding damages and banning) and their talks about we-have-invented-every-design-element-on-this-planet, curved, green, clock face, grids, sliding, touching and yes, breathing might be there somewhere too. And, also an important issue, Samsung not being an American company is absolutely not an important factor affecting people’s judgements outside of the U.S.
Are you trying to say Apple hasn’t?
Can you name some of that IP? I hope you will keep idea patents out of their IP collection.
The iPhone was a Nokia N770 with a phone and fluent interface. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet
When I saw the N770 I waited until they combined it with a phone. But somehow Nokia kept being stupid.
Edited 2012-08-08 08:26 UTC
The N770 was nowhere near the iPhone. The N800 and N810 weren’t either. I own an N810 and owned an N800 also. Maemo is as far removed from the iOS user experience as possible. The only commonality is that they are both ARM based.
The N900 was a phone, but it was seriously iPhone-ified. The Maemo OS was dumbed down for touch between NITOS2007 and the N900’s version. The NITOS2008 (Diablo) started the trend, though it was initially just them making all the icons giant and finger sized.
The thing that makes a current phone better than my old nokia phones is a big touchscreen and a full featured webbrowser. I have never owned the N770 but it certainly sounded like what I wanted.
But now that I think of it; what is it that made the iphone so special? I just explained what it was for me. But apparently it was different for other people.
The NIT’s (Nokia Internet Tablets) were ahead of their time, yes. But the hardware was painfully slow and underpowered and the OS was more geared to pen input. My 810 has a replacement UI Skin/theme that mimics the N900 and it’s a lot better ant finger friendly, but it’s not like the N9 (as an example) that was built from the ground up to accept finger input.
The original NIT browser was a version of Opera. The replacement was Webkit based (IIRC) and was better, but it never got to the point of being pleasurable to use.
I got the N810 for nostalgia and to mess about with mobile Linux. It’s good for that. It has a console and stuff, and dev tools can be installed on device. As an internet tablet, it’s outmoded now and was never all that speedy when new.
Humankind History has a history of copying other humans.
Copying, mimicking, behave as much as possible as something or someone else *is* everywhere, since first day, since first baby day. Every Societies, communities, nations were, are and will be built on the similarities, the common ground, the shared concept. Wars were, are and will be done for the same exact concept.
It’s *only* because today profit can be made by legally forbid others to copy, mimic, behave like others that it cast bad lights.
Sharing is the new enemy of profit, and the biggest threat to capitalism (besides its usual structural flaws). It’s written on the walls.
The concept that you could publish an idea and still forbid others to share it is at core of the current patent battle. You don’t have to care about technology or innovation (since when a green phone icon, rounded corners, black framing screen is an innovating technology!? Seriously!? Please, people, check definition of innovation…) to take side in this battle, even if the two companies on the ground are not all bad or all good.
The battle is not about the companies, but ideologies behind it.
I can do that too, you know. Some Apple fanatics tend to forget what Samsung is and what Apple isn’t always.(Looking at you Tony)
The fervour of some OS News folk (yes, I mean you, Thom) to put every Apple story into a holy war (the good agains the bad) looks way more religious to me.
Hmm..not really. Sure the Galaxy is is not unlike the iPhone but on the other hand it’s not unlike the F700 either. It’s pretty much just a slimmer and glossier version of the F700. Heck, you could argue that the iPhone is just a slimmer and glossier version of the F700.
With the exception of the green phone icon (and I have seen that phone image on phone booths since I was a child) the icons are not similar at all, not even in style.
The only part that is perhaps a bit too similar is the packaging. Ok, not perhaps, it’s very similar.
Edited 2012-08-07 13:48 UTC
You mean other than it having a physical keyboard?!
You’re missing the point… the phone icon opens the dialler, the dialler has the green button to make a call and red to end the call (when on a call). The phone icon on the home screen doesn’t turn red whilst on a call. The colour has nothing to do with the function.
The notes icon is very similar.
Why does the “photo album” have a yellow flower?
The rest are dubious.
The packaging is also a freaking big turnaround on Samsung’s part. Nothing came in that style box before the iPhone. Last week I unpacked a Galaxy Y… it was almost a clone of the iPhone packaging.
I really don’t care either way, I hope the judge/jury finds in favour of neither of them, but the fanatical zeal in which you cling to your vendetta against Apple is pretty distressing for anyone who remembers how good the content on this site used to be.
My LG Prada begs to differ.
Claiming a small box should be protected by IP is… Just so silly for a company that prides itself on being innovative. Like the phone icon, it just proves how bottom-of-the-barrel Apple has become.
Edited 2012-08-07 13:25 UTC
Really? And my 5th generation iPod from 2005 did too, so you’re point is that LG ripped off Apple? Cool.
Honestly, enough.
You don’t care anyway, and speak of others fanatical zeal while half the comments here are your own. Really now.
Yay me * 2!
What I want is to be able to read these stories and make my own mind up. come to the comments, state and opinion and for my peers to tell me I’m right or mod me to oblivion. I’m not interested in Thom’s hangups, dirty laundry or shoe size.
Edited 2012-08-07 16:36 UTC
Then start one thread and stick to it, and not start x+y threads, just because you’re angry about Thom editing your submission.
The reason one starts multiple threads on OS News is that:
1) a single thread with an unpopular view point (no matter how valid) will get voted down to oblivion, hiding that opinion. (Which is not a fair way of working when people down vote due to emotional reasons, as with stories like this.)
2) Everyone has a limit of around 2 down votes on any user before you are unable to further down vote other comments by that user. (this is a guess, but it seems to work that way for me.)
So, your first couple of comments are cannon fodder. It’s gaming the system, but it stops the usual suspects down voting the comments they dislike because they can’t stand anyone not agreeing with their own opinion. In the end, more people see your comments and more people up vote them if they agree and then often go back to see what you actually said and make their own mind up. Example? At one point my two initial comments were at -2, but they’ve since been voted back up to -1 or 0. That was less likely to happen with no coverage.
Thom, I think you’re developing a mild obsession here. I think the whole thing is a waste of time. I also think you’ve interpreted the evidence in line with your usual stance regarding Apple.
Personally, I think Samsung designs took a very strange shift towards looking like iPhones. Sure, it could be a coincidence. I doubt it, but it could be. But frankly, I don’t care that much.
Have a little faith that ultimately, two mega corporations going after each other will have little effect on the things you care about.
Just relax, take out some popcorn and enjoy the show.
I’d love to, but this is about so much more than just these two companies. This is about incumbents like Apple and Microsoft trying to stifle competition and prevent newcomers from entering the market. If Apple wins, the destructive effect this will have on the technology world will be massive. This is not an attack on Samsung or Android – this is an attack on the very industry I care so much about. If Apple wins, they will be given carte blanche to block virtually every competitor from entering the market place.
This is important. Very, very important.
Edited 2012-08-07 13:28 UTC
I think the doomsday scenario you’re painting is blown out of proportion. These kinds of court cases do little to stifle the competition or effect innovation in the industry. This is more akin to Apple Vs MS regarding Windows. That had little effect on everyone else.
What DID have an impact was MS destroying companies by abusing it’s monopoly position and using it’s financial clout to destroy newcomers.
I think you’re painting this court case to be something it’s not. This isn’t about how ridiculous software patents are (unbelievably ridiculous by my view), or some behemoth taking on the poor helpless new innovator. It’s just one mega huge company accusing another mega huge company of copying it’s product. Could and does happen in every industry.
– Edit –
NB: I also think you’re overestimating the chances of Apple’s success.
Edited 2012-08-07 13:51 UTC
It has little effect on these very large business that you usually see fighting each other. But it can be devastating for a small, really innovative, startup.
If these stupid IP claims on top of very trivial stuff, like rectangles and icons, began to be held in courts, you will end up with a scenario that will be impossible for you to actually open a tech company at all in USA (and to a lesser extent, Europe).
The point is, it won’t hold up in court. Not in that way. let’s not pretend the ruling will be about whether a company can hold a patent to a rounded triangles. The ruling will be about whether Samsung copied Apple’s design (that involves making a judgement a call on whether the combination of rounded triangles, colours, packaging, etc, etc, etc was an Apple knock off or not).
No company is going to have to worry about using rounded triangles off the back of this court case!
I will officially hereby announce that I shall eat my hat if that happens. Ever. I’ll have to buy one first of course.
Don’t be so confident.
I saw a judge block a product in Europe due a Community Design (not even a patent! Just a bunch of very generic drafts done with a pen in a paper, that even a kid can do). And we got the very strange trend of rulings favoring product bans in the first instance in the courts.
–deleted–
Ignorance is a bliss
Edited 2012-08-07 16:00 UTC
Thom I actually enjoy your bias, and the main reason I do is that I started reading Daring Fireball before OSAlert.
Boy, the lengths to which that idiot John Gruber goes to twists facts and cherry-pick fragments from all over the place in an attempt to make Apple look good while ridiculing all of its competitors is annoying beyond belief. So I developed a hatred for Apple. A hatred I honestly don’t know how to get rid of. And, of course, a hatred for Daring Fireball as well. If Apple were to go bankrupt tomorrow and Daring Fireball’s servers were to be wiped out, along with all backups, I would be a happy man hehe.
The point though, is that since Apple happens to build great products, with extreme attention to detail, visually appealing, remarkably engineered, etc, etc, it just seems that they’ll never go bankrupt and one-sided sites like DF will just have lots and lots to brag about. And Gruber’s snark isn’t going away any time soon. And the iIdiot clan will just keep getting larger and larger. Frustrating, I know
So I think that’s what’s happening with you. It seems you can’t wait for Apple to do something slightly bad, or for a competitor to do something slightly good for you to go all-out against Apple or all-out in favor of the competitor. And I get that, so I like this site for that. Your posts are better than, say, Gruber’s in many ways. You research your stuff before you post. You seem to look at all the alternatives. Gruber on the other hand doesn’t double check anything if it has something bad to say about Apple.
But boy, have you become biased, man! And it shows. And while I like it because of my hatred of DF and Apple, I think regulars and newcomers alike will who are unaffected by sites like DF and by the extreme level of stupidity which seems intrinsic to all/most iIdiots will be kinda put off. So, for the sake of good journalism, I believe so you should maybe, just maybe, step back the Apple hatred a bit and just keep doing what you do best: Write great OSAlert articles. I think it’ll be better in the long run
p.s. I’m at work and had no time to proof-read this so be warned
+1. I don’t have to like that you like his bias, but everything you are saying about his lack of objectivity and integrity is true and worth being modded up.
Sorry but i think you used the wrong word when saying: Thom lacks integrity
from wikipedia:
Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions.
What i did read from Thom is actually the opposite of “lack of integrity”. He is totally honest about his bias. He is consistent in his hating software patents.
And saying you agree with leonalpha’s observation that Thom lacks integrity is strange: Because he not even said that.
Thom, I see your bias against Apple but I don’t care. It’s your site and your articles, so you can pretty much write what you want.
Just take care because Apple isn’t claiming the invention of the green phone icon. Why this whole thing is against Samsung alone? Have you ever ask yourself why not Motorola, or Google itself? There’s more than a stupid fight under this trial and you should be digging on this instead of writing poor jokes about it. Just my opinion.
I see Samsung copying Apple here. I mean, Apple didn’t invent all this stuff but it did put it all together on a product. Samsung copy this: putting it all together. The USA patent system is fucked up indeed. It shouldn’t allow a company to prosecute another because of putting things together. But it does. That’s the real problem.
This tight patent mechanism is anti-innovation and will kill competition. This should stop and OS News should be raising this flag instead of anti-Apple fanboyism…
Apple is right because it’s using the patent system to protect it’s products. Samsung is right because it’s just competing giving buyers what they want: a useful alternative to iPhone. The laws in the middle are wrong but nobody seems to be aware of this.
+1. Well said and rational.
Spot on!
According to the linked article from CNET, Apple is claiming just that. Are you saying CNET is wrong? Not that I would be surprised, but in the article the green phone icon has an Apple patent number and everything.
Apple even claims to have invented using a cog for settings, and claims all other icons with cogs on them infringe even if the color, design and number of cogs is different.
Check the link, it really is that insane. On the surface it seems to be Apple insanity, but if you any evidence to the contrary, I would happily believe CNET finally lost it.
This is silly. Competition is only forced to come up with something *really* new. Just copying the most successful competition would not do anymore. That’s all.
And if Samsung et al. are so innovative, they won’t have much problem doing that. Heck, even MS managed to come up with something on its own this time.
Where you was in 80’s and 90’s when Microsoft wipeout complete competition?!?
…this is childish – what Apple do today compering what Microsoft was doing in 90’s
btw you never answer me: how old are you and what computers did you use so far? Did you have Amiga in 80’s?
agree.
His OSAlert profile says 1 Dec 1984, which would make him 27.
Given his day of birth it’s not likely he owned or even used an Amiga or any other computer for that matter during the 80s. Nor would it ever have been his primary computer after the 80s.
He probably got in to computing around the introduction of Windows 95.
najsssss…
I am 33 now and I still missed great chunk of early _personal computer_ days (got first computer at age of 5 :/)
but for me it is amusing to read all this Thomas writing about what is right and what is wrong
– he definitely has spirit but he miss lot of facts (or should I say: experience from innocence, uncorrupted computer days).
I’d give a lot to go back to that time. The 80s ruled! The 90s was when the dark ages started.
I have a lot of 80s computers, but it’s a poor substitute to actually living un that golden age.
I’m 38.
Not a chance. Ugh. No Internet. (Sure, sure, if you were an academic you had access. To e-mail and Usenet. Woohoo.) Poofy hair. Amber / black 12″ monitors. The Me Decade. Crappy graphics. Swapping floppy disks. Poofy jackets. BASIC. 2400 baud modems. No thanks.
That’s when they LIFTED. I remember in late 1996 when my Legal Studies professor at Wharton said, “Have you seen this site called Amazon.com that sells books?” Hells to the yeah!
I have no 80’s computers, although my father has a genuine Osborne sitting on a shelf. Five years ago I powered it up and it worked fine, but i don’t know it still does. Since I can play PC games in DOSBox or emulate a Mac if I want to play Dark Castle, I have no desire to try and use an AT style keyboard and an EGA video card tied to a 63-pound 13″ monitor.
So am I. My Core i7 with GeForce GTX 680, 16GB of RAM, solid state boot drive, and 1.5TB RAID 1 mirror (all on SATA 6Gbps) will be over here playing Skyrim while you reminisce about King’s Quest.
YEAH!
Yesterday I hooked up a ZX Spectrum 128, it still works. Your dad’s Osborn probably does too.
Considering your name, you’re likely from the Czech Republic or a similar place in the region – so it’s a bit weird that you missed those days, you’d know that using C=64 or Amiga and such was common well into the 90s… curious that you miss such simple fact now.
“innocence, uncorrupted computer days” were times when we were frankly being ripped off, with price/possibilities ratios.
(but I guess that might explain why you like Apple)
Oh, and…
In the 90s Apple tried to stop others from using the concept of GUI, by litigation – that’s as low as it gets (and they’re doing it again; and back then they utterly lost BTW)
MS… sure, they also played dirty – but the truth is, Windows 3.x & 95 (the earlier years of the 90s was when the ball got rolling) were simply the best choice than anything else available: http://www.osnews.com/thread?522221
Edited 2012-08-15 00:11 UTC
I’m around his age, C64 (which I had to buy myself) was my first computer …in the 90s, closer to the premi~A¨re of Win95 than to the time if my first PC.
While that was likely less common in the NL, probably still not unheard of.
Anyway, kovacm sounds like being from the Czech Republic or the like, he should know that was more typical…
You’re looking at the past through very rose-tinted glasses. And anyway, so what are you doing here with modern browser on a modern ~PC? You know, you could visit OSAlert on an Amiga… (or at least in some text-mode browser, through proxy massively slowing down the speed of connection) Instant time travel!
Yeah, since they are barely used in more recent times… but early micros were notoriously unreliable.
Edited 2012-08-15 00:18 UTC
The major consequence of Apple’s failure (at least until now) to protect its designs has been a market dominated by Apple imitators, with reduced diversity of options available to consumers. For example, Palm’s WebOS phones, despite positive reviews, failed not because of lawsuits from Apple, but because they were overwhelmed by the flood of cheap Android iClones from manufacturers who (because they did not have to invest in creating their own original designs, and were able to take advantage of Apple having already done the market testing) were able to undercut Palm. Blackberry looks likely to be the next victim.
So ironically, the consequence of an Apple loss will be that consumers will have few choices other than phones that emulate Apple’s designs (which are fine designs, but not necessarily so perfect that they should be the only options available)
Does this mean you don’t care one bit about what could be patented, and more importantly, if *everything* could one day be patented!?
I clearly don’t care the same than you, then.
I certainly do! I just don’t believe this case is the be all and all of patent issues. Patent laws are the problem, not this case. I’m not a fan of software patents. I despise the idea that a company can patent a living organism or seed. Or a geometric shape.
However, when a company feels like a product is being outright ripped off by a competitor, I believe they have the right to put forward their case!
Let’s save the outrage till AFTER a ruling.
EDIT – fixed rather critical typo.
Edited 2012-08-07 18:05 UTC
Plus, courts is not the only place where judgement can happen. Pocket’s money and customer opinions are some others, to cite a few alternate ones…
I don’t think it is a coincidence that multiple companies use the same technology and make the same choices about how to use that technology. Apparently they have researchers that found the best practices. Weird huh?
Considering they’re all de facto standard motifs (and have been long before the iPhone), they didn’t look that similar to me.
Next Apple will be claiming patents on monochrome glyphs….
OK, it’s obvious Apple’s designs (hardware/UI/packaging) “inspired” a pretty major shift in Samsung’s designs and I suppose anyone in his right mind should be able to notice and confess this. Although it’s a completely different story if these kinds of stuff should be “patentable” or not..
Do not even have adults a right to an opinion?
Like it is my opinion that Apple is a compagny that mutated into a patenttroll where I will never ever buy anything?
Thom has a right to give his opinion, like you have too.
I just hope that this judge will tell both Apple and Samsung to stop this silly childish behaviour and compete on quality rather then playing the one that is shocked and all this other theater.
Apple never designed anything by itself, there was always “prior art”. Apple knows (or knew?) about marketing, that is what they are good at.
As a forum member, yes. As somebody supposedly reporting news, no not really. I grew up with the BBC where they bend over backwards to be fair to all parties. Maybe I’m spoilt? I expect journalists to report fairly and where they disagree with something, to give opinion pieces to expose they own feelings.
And for that I would have +1’d you, if I’d been able to.
BBC sensationalise as much as any other news organisation and thus also chase after trendy news items – giving them unfair bias over competitors. eg Apple product launches have always been a feature since the launch of the iPhone, yet no other competitors were featured on even the Technology pages of the news site until only the last 24 months ago.
Furthermore, nearly all of their IT reporters are technologically inept. Rory Cellan-Jones is the prime example; he once went on record slating Linux because he couldn’t even manage to install Ubuntu on a bog standard PC and then bitched about how hard it was to use because he tried to compile OpenOffice instead of pulling it from the software repositories.
BBC used to be good back when it pretty much had a monopoly. But in the post satellite / cable TV era they’ve been spiralling downwards. Worse yet, in the post internet era, the few good articles the Beeb have published have amounted to little more than a copy and paste job from Reuters (but then isn’t that basically how all news works these days?)
The ironic thing about all this is, in your campaign for impartial reporting, you’ve referenced a news organisation that’s off it’s game but you which you had fond childhood memories of, and have given an unbalanced counterargument regarding the Apple vs Samsung slapping contest. So with all this talk of fair arguments, you’ve been guilty of the same conviction.
Yay me!
Put it another way: would you prefer the Times/Telegraph/Guardian or the Sport/Sun/Mirror? We’re leaning towards the latter here.
Edited 2012-08-07 16:34 UTC
So long as it’s not the Daily Mail
Who reads the papers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M
The Independent is my paper of choice. The Times isn’t that much better than The Mail (from what I recall) and the Guardian is biased too. Never read the Telegraph though.
The point was more – good quality, if possibly biased vs sensationalised garbage. Next I see headlines that are bad puns and stories that were written down the pub after 10 pints. You know, general standard Sun/Mirror, moving towards the utter insanity that the Sunday Sport used to have (“Statue of Elvis found on Mars”, “my son turned in to a Baked Bean and I ate him”… that kind of stuff..)
Technically it was a fish finger, not baked bean. Plus biased views are as bad a sensationalised garbage and puns. Or at least, they’re bad if the reader isn’t aware of the publications bias and thus cannot take an objective opinion from such reports.
Edited 2012-08-08 08:54 UTC
No one is perfect, definitely not me, but starting from an extreme position leaves no headroom for any alternative. Painting oneself in to a corner is not good journalism. Having a point of view is fine. You can hate Company A and support Company B without descending in to out and out absolutist name calling and taunting. That’s my complaint. It’s not that Thom likes A and hates B, it’s that we get venomous and poorly researched opinion pieces attached to any story that has a small connection to a specific company. I mean, look at the stories over the last few days –
“Dangers of a monoculture” – The guy was screwed over by a hacker that used multiple techniques to gain access to his account with multiple levels of incompetence from both himself and the providers the hacker gained the info from. But no, apparently it was all down to Apple.
“OS X Mountain Lion: data loss via ‘Save As'” – the article the story is based in is flat out wrong. Retraction or correction? No.
“iOS 6 beta 4 removes YouTube application” – we got a knee jerk reaction till the Verge got the inside scoop.
“A visual guide to Apple’s IP claims” – we got a very childish opinion shoved at us in the comment on the story. Except, today we get this story : “Samsung’s iPhone-to-Galaxy SI comparison”, which goes a long way to backing up many of the claims in both the story we’re talking about and puts doubts on bunch of other stories claiming the opposite that have been used to throw this agenda forward.
It’s very hard to read this site and take the reporting seriously when everything is slanted so far in one polar direction. I know Apple is evil and does really shitty things, is a patent troll and doesn’t do anything except try to make more money through these types of cases…. but then, what is Samsung? Unclean and very much in the same boat… possibly even dirtier if you believe some stories floating about.
All I’m asking for is some balance in the reporting. It seems like the “Samsung’s iPhone-to-Galaxy SI comparison” has kind of given that today. Good stuff. I only wish Thom had the decency to admit that he might have gone too far. The problem is – if I say any of this, I get accused of being an Apple fanboy and get a very defensive Thom being angry at me. Really, no one can win.
I’m glad you’ve now taken to time to explain your position a little more because you’re coming across a lot better now than you were in your original 3 post rants.
While I do agree with a lot of what Thom posts, you are right that, at times, his pieces sound incredibly one sided.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your position though
You mean back when it was the governments lap dog?
I might be wearing rose-tinted glasses, but it wasn’t that biased was it?
In all honesty, probably not although the government did hold considerable sway.
I do recall BBC having a reputation as a balanced (but not unbiased) news source.
Interesting.
Thanks for the comments
The BBC used to bend over backwards to be completely unbiased. It’s still in their charter.
On the other hand, if you watch Sky News (or Fox News) then the BBC News, you can see precisely what good vs bad is. Hint: Bad != BBC
I think you misunderstood me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them being biased. In fact, good journalism is biased but at the same time balanced.
Indeed.
Also, Biased != Bad & Unbiased != Good.
Here, have a video from the trustworthy Big Brother Corporation about some of the posters… ;p http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13416272
Edited 2012-08-14 23:28 UTC
“Samsung is also infringing Apple’s icon trademarks by advertising and selling a wide variety of products using confusingly similar icons…The icons on these products were intentionally designed to look like Apple’s icons and infringe Apple’s trademark rights.”
That’s ridiculous over the top. For the simple reason icons are supposed to work more or less like ideographs and be as similar and effective as possible. One could say they’d be “confusing” if they were totally different. I wonder if they’re somehow trying to make us believe that the world is actually going the other way around or that the way we see it is actually upside down. Really, this thing Apple is complaining about is getting more and more farcical and less and less funny.
White phone in 45 degrees on a green background, rounded corners (just throwing it in here…)
http://www.extragsm.com/palm-treo-270-phone-gallery-2454.html
http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/3028/samsung-power-corrupt…
And Apple is still a one man cult. What’s your point? The fact that huge corporations have so much crap about them that it’s not hard to find skeletons in their closets?
Hoping to draw a little heat away from Thom here. I *AM* biased in this case. I’m absolutely INCENSED that Apple is claiming Samsung ripped them off, going so far as to call it “offensive.”
No, what’s offensive is Apple claiming ANY INNOVATION AT ALL in the iPhone. The iPod Touch and (aside from the phone portion) the iPhone did not do ONE THING that my Palm Tungsten E couldn’t do in 2002. And around the same time, the Handspring Treo came out, giving us a phone / browser / PDA. Handspring started in 1998, and already had the idea for the phone / PDA mash-up. Guess what? It had icons! Imagine that! Of course, the icon idea was stolen from Xerox anyway.
I suppose people will start yelling about capacitive multi-touch screens and gestures. Apple didn’t invent those. Arguably, the Jot handwriting recognition was a type of gestures. Mouse gestures long predate the iPhone. “Pinch to zoom” is cool and all, but it’s not some brilliant idea Apple came up with out of the blue.
And why are we talking about the software, anyway? Samsung used Android, which isn’t even theirs! How can they possibly be accused of copying Apple with software they didn’t write?
As for “design,” again the original Palm pilot and a host of PDAs all could be confused from a distance. Is the iPhone pretty? Sure. Can you claim someone copied Apple because they made a rectangular block? (Incidentally, the founder of Handspring literally walked around with different sized blocks of wood to determine the best size. The Handspring Visor is remarkably similar in form factor to the iPhone, if much more plastic-y.
Apple in this case isn’t just a patent troll. They are delusional. No one else can make a rectangle! We invented that!
Drawing audible gasps from the audience it was first revealed to and visibly changing the direction of everything announced after it just doesn’t count for much these days, apparently.
“If you see a stylus, they screwed up.” -SJ
We’re talking about designs. The whole product. Look, feel, usability, and, yes, raw, checklist-y features, but all of those things together. Forests, not trees.
No need to yell, but yes, let’s talk about those. Your Tungsten didn’t have any part of that. It had handwriting recognition and a stylus. Apple decided that was a bad usability direction, and then by stunning coincidence, so did everyone else.
This is also a good point on which to disqualify everyone’s favorite red herring, the F700, as being in any way relevant to the iPhone:
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_f700-1849.php
There it is, in all its laughable shortage of glory. It’s fun to look at one picture and let our imaginations run wild, but here on Earth, it was just a fat little pill of a slide-out feature phone with a resistive touchscreen at 240×440 glued to the front.
The most common tactic when trying to tear down Apple: make a strawman by conflating innovation with invention. Innovation is a forest; invention is the trees. Apple, as a general rule, makes forests, not trees.
And the Newton predates Jot. But gestures are generally bad usability because, unless they’re implemented as a natural bridge between convention and technology (i.e. handwriting recognition), they’re not discoverable. Even then, they often prove to be an inefficient crutch, as HR did when compared to virtual touch keyboards.
Don’t-call-it-Metro has a lot more edge-swiping in its UI than Apple cares to include, just as they steered away from Android’s context-insensitive hardware buttons. What was your point again? That things exist which don’t come from Apple? Oh, do go on.
True, it was demonstrated well before the iPhone, and as I understand it, it had nothing to do with the company Apple bought out to get their multitouch portfolio off the ground. In the case of pinch-to-zoom, Apple has a patent on a specific algorithm for enabling it. Others are welcome to mimic the surface functionality, provided they can prove to a court that they came up with a different way to do it.
1. Samsung’s TouchWiz looks more like iOS than vanilla Android does.
2. Samsung is actually selling a product, while Google is just dumping code.
3. That product, taken as a whole, looks and works an awful lot like an iPhone.
Apple argues this is systemic and intentional (i.e. counterfeiting). Their argument has some very significant evidence behind it.
I’ll let your last line stand on its own as breathless self-parody.
Samsung’s internal presentation comparing the Galaxy S1 to the iPhone with suggestions of what to incorporate in Samsung products to make it more like …. Drum Roll.. iPhone.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/102317767/44
The blind Anti-Apple hate on this site … especially fueled by the editor is shameful to say the least.
The self-selected audience at a Apple product unveiling would audibly gasp in astonishment if Jobs had unveiled the new Apple iWheel. Of course, it would only work on Apple iRoads.
As for “visibly changing everything after it,” this is only partially true. Yes, it meant that we all now have capactive touch screens. But no, it really didn’t change anything fundamental. Again, there is no task the iPhone does that my Tungsten E couldn’t do 5 years earlier. The interface was clumsier, but the CONCEPTS were identical: tap on an icon to launch an app; play games; listen to music; watch videos; have a to do list and contacts and calendar.
So the point is that technology evolved in 5 years? Go figure. And as much as Jobs was a design genius he isn’t necessarily right on this. Numerous people I know (including my father) have complained about the lack of stylus. Samsung included one with the Galaxy Note. Generally, people have preferred a finger-only solution, but there are plenty of use cases for the stylus.
Why is that what we’re talking about? To the best of my knowledge, the trial is about specific patents, e.g. the ‘318 “overscroll” or “rubber band” patent. That patent was filed years after I played Bejeweled (on my Tungsten E again!). When you try to swap two jewels illegaly, they “rubber band” back in to place! Somehow, our patent system is so broken it thinks that this concept is somehow different when scrolling to the end of page, and different again if it’s touch screen instead of a mouse, and different again if it’s on a projector instead of an LCD screen, etc., etc., etc. Apple does not have a patent for the forest, only the trees.
My Tungsten already had a pop-up keyboard if I wanted it, and it used gestures, for example to copy and paste. (Oh wait, the iPhone didn’t have copy and paste in 2007, did it?) But I do give Apple credit for paving the way in the marketplace. Yes, Apple convinced CONSUMERS that finger instead of stylus was good, so other companies could follow. Yes, I said follow.
Again, they don’t have a patent on the forest. The iPhone (and other iOS devices) are very nice, and quite pretty. That doesn’t mean that anyone who does something nice and pretty is copying them.
If you want to argue that the Newton was innovative I’m all for it. It was vastly more innovative than the iPhone. Kudos to Apple for trying to make it work, and it’s a shame that technology wasn’t ready for it yet. Great idea, and it paved the way for others. But Apple isn’t suing because Samsung copied the Newton.
Wait, what? I thought the gestures on the iPhone were a spectacular example of Apple’s innovative genius? Now they’re not?
Okay. Which patents are we talking about?
All right, but that’s still Google doing the copying, not Samsung.
Again, “taken as a whole” isn’t a patent that Apple can sue for.
Hm. I’m not sure I see “systemic and intentional copying” as the same as “counterfeiting.” They don’t put an Apple logo on the device, or try to pass it off as an iPhone. When the first car company added a radio, did anyone else adding a radio constitute “counterfeiting?” Keeping up with the competition is allowed. What is so maddening to me is that Apple does this EXACT same thing and doesn’t see it. I’ve given numerous examples of things Apple copied, and you say “it’s the totality of the thing, not the components.” Then Samsung copies Apple and you say “burn them at the stake!”
More breathless self-parody.
I’m not seeing anything to disagree with here. Concepts, tasks, feature checklists – yes, precisely. Trees. Things computers have always done, but with a clumsier interface. Apple did real, serious work figuring out how to make the interface not clumsy. And then Google and Samsung got out the tracing paper.
My point had more to do with the fact that Apple brought a very specific design philosophy to the problem, which differs from precursors like your Tungsten. I think they’re right — a stylus is easy to lose and hard to use. But the fact that there are people who want one, whatever their reasons, is all the more reason why Samsung et al don’t have to copy Apple. They could go do something original instead.
Actually, I should correct myself here, because we’re talking about at least three very different things.
First is the reactionary contention that Apple is not innovative, to which I say look at the forest, not the trees. (The latter is invention, the former is innovation, around and around we go.)
The second is patent law, which is stricter and more nuanced than people here give it credit for. When Apple patents pinch-to-zoom and rubber banding, they patent it with a specific, original equation to make it work. Like any other patented invention, this means two things: no one else can do it that way until the patent expires, and once it does expire, everyone else knows exactly how to do it. The patent system works. Maybe patents last too long, but coming from a context of Thom’s red-faced vitriol against the whole system, we’re really not ready to start debating the finer points yet.
Third is trademark/trade dress. This is sort of odd middle ground, and the whole point of the visual guide we’re commenting on. You determine whether the forest was copied by counting up all the identical trees. It’s a significant portion.
I really have no idea what you mean. Gestures aren’t discoverable. Relying on them is bad for that reason. It’s sort of like all those years when the Mac OS didn’t use contextual menus. The fact that the option wasn’t even available just made Mac software better, because you didn’t have to go on a right-click easter egg hunt to find the missing functions.
It’s Samsung selling the copy. Maybe the court will decide Apple should be going after Google directly, I don’t know, but I think it makes sense. ‘We make a product. They sell a copy of our product. Make them stop.’ Google is the big wrongdoer, but it’s much easier to make people understand physical copies than conceptual ones. Besides which, similarity to the iPhone varies significantly among OEMs. Arguing Google is the problem would be not entirely unlike blaming Napster for the infringement it enabled, for better or worse.
But it’s no less a (potential) violation of trade dress than putting a Gucci logo on a $5 bag.
The judge in the Psystar case decided their computers were counterfeit Macs. That’s one of the reasons that word comes to mind. I’m also picturing the rash of horrible Chinese knockoff iPods with a thing on the front that looks like a scroll wheel but doesn’t function like one, if it even functions at all. Take the same cloning concept, but made more competently by a more reputable company, and you have a similar situation to today’s Samsung. Is it any less of a knockoff?
Again with the trees.
Apple creates a beautiful, simple device and fills it with new software to enable its functions. The look is trademarked, and some of the functionality is patented. Samsung comes along, sees that Apple has done something better, knows that all the tech it uses is publicly available, and figures it can just sit down and copy away. Suddenly, there’s a lawyer on the phone, because following Apple means stepping in some patents and landing on a trademarked look.
I don’t think you have. What did Apple copy? Calendaring? MP3s? Whose implementation did they copy? Whose design? So they weren’t the first to include features. Big whoop. Including features is easy. Figuring out ways to make them work well together is hard. Just look at Linux: it has a gazillion features and remains a usability nightmare. It beat others to market with lots of things, but does it really make sense to say that anyone is copying it?
I am mad at Samsung, but not because their complete lack of originality threatens Apple. It’s far more insidious than that. It threatens innovation itself. I do believe it’s discouraging to would-be innovators if copycats get away with it, but Apple will keep moving forward regardless. I’m more concerned about Nokia and Palm. After Android settled in as the iPhone for networks that don’t carry the actual iPhone, there was no need for genuinely different and interesting smartphones, so down they went, and legacy RIM with them. The iPhone was popular; Androids copied it, and the carriers hawked them as an iPhone workalike. Instead, they should have been selling the same features packaged in a different and innovative way by Palm.
Me: “…Apple iWheel…”
atsureki: “More breathless self-parody.”
Not really. Any Apple event will be successful. The only time I can remember an audience booing is when Bill Gates appeared on the big screen looking just like the talking head in the Mac 1984 commercial. Even the Apple products that went nowhere were vigorously applauded. I certainly used hyperbole to exaggerate the point, but the point is valid. Jobs always had the advantage of preaching to the choir.
And kudos. Good job. I bought an iPod Touch when it came out and rather liked it.
Uh, no. Did they realize they had fallen behind the competition? Yes. Did they copy (yes, I said COPY!) certain features, like capacitive screens? Yes. But you keep saying how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, yet somehow Samsung tweaking its parts means it’s copying the whole.
And did. As I said, the Note has a stylus. If Samsung is just copying Apple why did they do that? Why does it have such an enormous screen when Jobs & co. feel that out-sizing the hand is the wrong move? Why are they using OLED tech instead of “Retina” displays? Samsung’s forest, as it were, has plenty of differences to the iPhone, even if some of the “trees” were inspired by Apple’s work.
Apple’s done some nice things over the years. SCSI, FireWire, ADB, AppleTalk, HyperCard, the aforementioned Newton, etc. etc. I admit to some hyperbole on saying the iPhone had no innovation at all. What I find so frustrating is that Apple makes some MINOR innovations to put together all-around good product, then tells the world that they literally own everything related to it. I *WASN’T* using breathless self-parody when I used the line “We invented the rectangle!” Apple has pointedly said that they invented the rectangle and that anyone else using rectangles are copying them. The ‘381 over-scroll patent burns my blood; here is Apple claiming to have invented (invented, not innovated; they filed a patent) the concept, when there is prior art going back a decade. And they sue anyone else who tries it. And not it a “this is a good business move” way, but in a self-righteous, “how DARE THEY!” way. And before you accuse of more “breathless self-parody,” no, that is actually MILD compared to what Jobs actually has said about it. Innovative? Sure. Anyone who copies any single portion is a thief? No.
Not really. The ‘381 patent is infringed if you have a touch screen device, move the edge and a little farther and get a change in display state, and then when you let go it bounces back to the “actual” edge. The underlying algorithm is irrelevant.
To an extent. There are plenty of examples where it’s a disaster. The Lemelson patent comes to mind. The Modicon / Solaia 5,038,318 patent for a “Device for Communicating Real Time Data Between a Programmable Logic Controller and a Program Operating in a Central Controller” is another ridiculous example. The IDEA of patents is good. The fact that we patent crap that shouldn’t be patent-able is a problem.
And back on Apple’s self-aggrandizement, they are valuing their patents at $2 or $3 per unit and Samsung’s at $0.0049. This is the kind of thing that leads me to make comments like, “What’s next, the iWheel?”
It’s actually NOT what I’m commenting on. I’m commenting on the ego of Apple execs (and fanbois, though bear in mind I’m not necessarily casting you in with that lot.) They believe they invented every single tree in that forest, and if someone else copies any one tree they are clearly worthless individuals who have done nothing but stolen the hard labor of Apple’s god-like geniuses. NO. The’381 patent should never have been issued. People doing bounce-back did NOT copy Apple. And yes, Apple’s lawyers are specifically arguing this point. Not that having bounce-back contributes makes the whole more similar, but that having that one tree makes them intellectual property thieves.
Me: “Wait, what? I thought the gestures on the iPhone were a spectacular example of Apple’s innovative genius? Now they’re not?”
Uh, there is NO WAY to use an iPhone without gesturs. The VERY FIRST THING YOU DO is swipe across the screen. You swipe to scroll. You pinch to zoom. Pinch to zoom is a gesture. The concept of gestures is ancient, but somehow the “pinch to zoom” gesture gets a patent and Apple sues over it.
Fair enough, although much of the patented functionality is a joke, and never should have been issued.
I disagree that they simply copied. In some ways, the tech caught up, e.g. internal antennae and more powerful processors. And the side-by-side visual is what prompts my whole “no one else can use rectangles!” diatribe. It’s a black rectangle. Of COURSE they look similar. That doesn’t mean “copied” and it doesn’t mean trademark infringement.
I’m not sure that helps your argument. Apple is accusing Samsung of including features, e.g. the ‘381 patent. There are tons of other differences, and I’d pay good money to hear an Apple exec get up there and say that Samsung made their phones AS GOOD AS the iPhone, which would be more of copying the whole.
That’s why I’m so angry at Apple. Why bother to try and do anything if Apple will take it, patent it, and then sue everyone else out of existence? Stole from Xerox, sued Lotus and Microsoft. Stole the “bounce back” idea from hundreds of people, sued Samsung. Wanted $1.00 per port to license Firewire, which was basically serial SCSI. They have used legal bullying tactics since day one claiming that they are the only ones who’ve ever done anything, regardless of the facts.
I seriously hope that they are not arguing that it is counterfeiting. That would take incompetence to a new level.
Samsung may, or may not, be violating Apple patents and mimicking Apple designs but none of that is counterfeiting.
If their argument is that Samsung is counterfeiting iPhones then no, there’s no evidence at all for that.
A lot of you people whining about Thom’s ‘bias’ need to sit back and think about the situation for a moment or two. While the term fits (strictly speaking), most often it’s used in such a way as to suggest an irrational dislike for something. Thom’s (well-founded) disgust for Apple’s behavior is anything but irrational.
Does it seem like a lot of these stories are cropping up? Indeed it does, but instead of immediately accusing Mr. Holwerda of waging a personal holy-war against Apple, it’s worth considering that these stories keep popping up because Apple continues to behave in a manner well-worth the ire of anyone who cares about trifling matters such as freedom, history or honest-to-god innovation.
“Well that’s fine,” you say, “but all I’m really interested in are stories about new hardware, new operating systems, etc.”
If that’s your opinion, you’d better start holding an anti-Apple bias (and anti-Microsoft bias while we’re at it) yourself, because unless giant tech-bullies like Apple/MS get slapped down, and hard, you can look forward to a future where the entrepreneurial spirit has been stamped out of existence by those holding the most cash and the greatest number of patents, laughable or otherwise.
Come on. Just look around the web and you’ll see a lot more patent stories than just “Apple against ..”. Funny, only the ‘Apple against ..’ stories are seen on this site.
Of course it’s Thom’s freedom to post whatever stories he likes on his tech blog, but claiming that there is some natural objectivity in the selection of stories is just stupid.
In the media world things are not about truth, justice or objectivity but about who can make the most noise.
Apple V. Samsung is the big story right now. It’s the only one you’ll hear about regularly in the ‘mainstream media,’ because everyone and their mom owns an iPhone. That does elevate this story somewhat, which makes this a bit of a special case; you’ll recall that Thom used to post a shit-ton of IP and patent law stories, but everyone started bitching about it due to the sheer number of articles posted.
And yet you claim that
Sorry, no. These story keep popping up because Thom is heavily biased. And I don’t agree that Apple is wrong trying to protect their right using completely legal actions either. If you don’t like that a company goes to court about patents (hello – that’s what patents are for – to get legal protection!) then you should cry foul about the law. I don’t see why this is Apples fault in the first place. Google, Samsun, Nokie, Kodak, have patents too and they will use them if they believe they have to. Simple as that.
If my memory serves me right, there’s a killswitch that terminates an instance called AAPL. I don’t remember where it is now, though. Enough with rant.
My cousin is an automobile designer who now works for Honda America and used to work for GM in early 1990’s. He once told me that many of current (2005 onwards) Ford sedans have striking resemblance in terms of bodyline with Honda and, to a lesser degree, Toyota/Lexus. He also recognized how some earlier Honda hatchbacks copied Ford’s hatchback design. But not one of those companies ever think of filing a lawsuit against each other.
To them, that’s just how competition works; one company/individual comes up with something new that works, others then follow suit and improve on it, and the cycle continues. That’s simply what makes the industry tick and alive. More importantly — to me at least, that’s how our predecessors, spanning hundreds of centuries, built our civilization. In other words, that’s how we, as human kind, developed our culture.
This ongoing patent madness in tech world is just anti-competitive and counterproductive. It has to stop.
Edited 2012-08-08 14:59 UTC